Halo 5 for Xbox One is the best first-person-shooter in a long while, although it is one that carries several compromises. It pushes the sci-fi series' gameplay forward, but lacks features from older versions. Online battles are great fun, but the campaign's a slog. Everything runs at 60 frames per second, but the visuals take a hit. Considering the current generation of consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, have been out for almost three years, the trade-offs are disappointing. That said, Halo 5's addictive online mode provides some of the best FPS action in years and comes highly recommended if you overlook the asterisks.

Chief Complaints The last time Master Chief picked up his Battle Rifle, he fought robotic Prometheans and said goodbye to his longtime AI companion Cortana. It was a decent yarn, especially in the way it handled Chief's and Cortana's relationship. They fought together—a human conditioned to be like a machine, and a machine conditioned to be like a human—and now they're apart. Halo 5 picks up afterwards, with Chief on the lam, and a team of Spartans under his command. They're pursued by another Spartan, Locke, who, with his own squad, must bring the legendary soldier back into the fold.

This cat-and-mouse setup sounds promising, but 343 Industries does little with it. Confrontations fall flat, long-awaited reunions fizzle, and stakes deflate like a soufflé. Turns out—spoilers!—Cortana is perfectly fine and there's yet another mechanical menace out to destroy humanity. 343 could've dealt with a grieving Chief or the distinctions between his and Locke's teams, but that's all swept aside for what's basically the template of Halo 2, and not in the clever Metal Gear Solid Vway that puts the idea of iteration under a microscope. You switch back and forth between protagonists Chief and Locke, a new Monitor (à la 343 Guilty Spark) shows up, and the cliffhanger sets up a doomsday threat for the sequel. Sound familiar? It's Halo on autopilot.

Despite the familiarity, some of the campaign's levels are well designed, with multiple paths of engagement. But for every well-crafted gauntlet, there are two or three set pieces I swear I played ten years ago in Halo 3. There are frequent dull interludes, too, where you must go from waypoint to waypoint, talking to NPC villagers, in order to trigger the next event. These moments are tedious, and a poor attempt at world-building. The well-produced, over-the-top cutscenes highlight the boredom: The opening alone has 1,000-pound space marines rocketing through space and body-surfing Covenant down a mountainside. Later on, Chief and Locke box each other before everyone jumps through teleportation doors like a Scooby Doo sketch. The cinemas look sleek, but it's too much like Devil May Cryfor Halo, and none of it's playable.

#SquadGoals Halo 5's campaign, designed around co-op multiplayer, shoots itself in the foot. When playing solo, you're stuck commanding Chief's and Locke's teammates by pressing Down on the D-pad; you can aim at an enemy and hit Down to have your Spartans focus fire on it. It's like a bare-bones Star Wars: Republic Commando, except your squadmates are as sharp as doorknobs half the time. Master Chief could fall prey to a cheap, one-hit shot from the same recurring mini-boss, and every time you ask for help from your brothers-in-arms they'd all march to their death. There's no plan of attack or covering fire to protect each other—just a saunter-on-over and then flop, dead, back to checkpoint.

Damningly, you can't expect help from your friends on the couch. 343 axed local split-screen multiplayer, a series trademark. If you want to play socially, you need to get online, which means you need an Xbox Live subscription. And unlike Gears of War or Left 4 Dead, there's no matchmaking for online co-op in case you want to play with randoms. Even if there were, suppose someone drops out of the game suddenly; they can't drop in, because that's not an option in Halo 5's online multiplayer.

Microsoft and 343 Industries removed these once-common features because the Xbox One is not powerful enough to accommodate a 1080p, 60fps performance, and the splitting of the screen in half or fourths at the same time. In other words, if Halo 5 had four-way split screen it would look and play poorly due to the Xbox One's underpowered hardware. Halo 5's not alone; several games this generation have to choose between emphasizing performance or visuals (see the upcoming Uncharted 4's 900p/60fps multiplayer).

A possible alternative would have been to tone Halo 5's graphics down (even more), so it could run at 30fps—like every past Halo game—in order to balance out a 1080p resolution and couch co-op. The downside is that then we'd be stuck with a 30fps next-gen Halo game, which isn't very "next-gen." No matter what, there's going to be a compromise.

Or maybe Microsoft wanted to sell more consoles and Xbox Live subscriptions. Xbox boss Phil Spencer basically admitted this. Whatever the reason, the removal of the most convenient and common form of co-op—handing a controller to the friend sitting next to you—is enough to dock an entire point.

Micro-transactions rear their head, too. Warzone, the online multiplayer mode centered on huge battles between player-controlled teams and AI enemies, features pay-to-win REQ packs. These packs of cards grant you buffs, vehicles, and weapons. You can win these by playing the game, but players who simply buy the buffs are immediately given an edge—an inherent flaw in pay-to-win schemes. Granted, Warzone is inconsequential fun. Ranked team deathmatch is the true reason to play Halo 5.

Despite All That…So here's the thing. The campaign's mediocre. And compelling options from entire generations ago are absent. But Halo 5's online multiplayer's the best arena action game I've played since Halo 2. It's good. Really, really good—up there with classic Counter-Strike or Quake. The controls feel perfect, nearly every weapon's balanced, and the new-to-Halo maneuvers (like dash and ground-pound) have been refined since the beta. It strikes the perfect balance between Call of Duty's arena-style shooting and Titanfall's high-speed mobility. There is no barrier between you, the controls, and the game. And combat options are plentiful.

For example, there are three ways to change your course midair: boost, ground pound, or stop short and hover in the air with ADS (aim-down sights). You can even jump and then boost behind someone chasing you. Factor in three different types of grenades (including one that acts as a proximity mine), a melee attack, and a sprint that you can seamlessly transition into a sliding crouch, and you have one of the most-robust movesets in a console shooter.

Map design is mostly solid, if a little bland, and the Covenant maps are still the weakest (circular purple rings are so boring). There's also a low variety of maps at launch, but Microsoft and 343 pledged to fix that with free DLC down the line. Like campaign co-op, there's no drop-in/drop-out, which probably wouldn't work well in a ranked playlist. Still, it's less fun to suddenly fight in a three-man team when you're up against a full, four-person group, or vice versa, because some jabroney chickened out or disconnected.

Lag, however, is non-existent and finding games has been a breeze. This is in stark contrast to the ramshackle Halo: Master Chief Collection released last year. Whatever netcode Microsoft is using now, I wish they'd spread the wealth. I've only experienced one instance of slowdown when the game took a half-second to register a double-kill. Otherwise, I've been racking up frags left and right with nary a skipped frame. 343's bid for 60fps, though at the expense of a compelling campaign and couch co-op, has paid off.

Multiplayer OnlyHalo 5 is an odd duck. The campaign suffers from poor AI, inconsistent levels, and the loss of old-school features like local cop-op. These faults and limitations do little to fight this console generation's two-steps-forward-several-steps-back image. On the other hand, Halo 5's online multiplayer is the best first-person arena action I've played in over a decade. So, if you don't care about story and don't mind dropping 60 bucks on what's basically a multiplayer shooter, Halo 5 comes highly recommended. If not, there's Destiny, from the original creators of Halo, which is enjoying something of a resurgence lately. That's available on Xbox One or PS4. Or there's Splatoon, Nintendo's creative take on arena shooters, for the Wii U.

And if you do go with Halo 5, be sure you sign up for Xbox Live and forgo expectations of playing with friends in the same room. At least it looks like the community won't jump ship like they did with Halo 4. Initial reports suggest that Warzone's REQ packs are selling like hotcakes—to the tune of $500,000 since release—so hopefully Halo 5 will live a long and healthy life, and steadily improve. Until Halo 6.

PCMag may earn affiliate commissions from the shopping links included on this page. These commissions do not affect how we test, rate or review products. To find out more, read our complete terms of use.

Timothy Torres is a Junior Analyst on PCMag's consumer electronics team. He covers wearables, digital home, and various cool gadgets including the occasional video game. He has written all manner of copy for Computer Shopper, The Jersey Journal, Radio One, Random House, and 2D-X. Before entering the tech world, he attended New York University and worked in education as an art instructor. In his spare time he dabbles in theater, sketches comics, eats a lot of sushi and watches too many movies.
Twitter: @pleasedtomeetya...
More »